Taking action is the best way to ease worry.  Instead of dwelling on what you can’t control, take action on the things you can control.

10 Steps To Kick Start Your Personal Finances

1.  Open a high interest savings account.  I listed this as the first step because it is so easy to do.  I wanted to lower the barriers to getting started.  Spend about 30 minutes checking out various online banks’ high interest savings accounts and then open one.  I use the ING Direct Savings Account.

2.  Set up automatic savings.  This is important.  You need to make sure that you build savings through automatic payments.  A lot of employers will allow you to make direct deposits into multiple accounts.  This is a great way to set up automatic savings using your new high interest savings account.

3.  Join your company’s 401(k) plan.  This could have been item number one, but I didn’t want to slow you down right out of the gate.  Additionally, I think that opening a savings account is important so that you can build an emergency fund.

4.  Start contributing to your 401(k) plan.  Don’t worry about how much you can initially contribute, just start contributing to it.  When I started contributing to my 401(k), I started by contributing around $100 a month.  Then, I slowly built this up by putting every raise that I got right into my 401(k) plan.  This was great because I wasn’t used to having that money yet anyways.

5.  Develop a plan for funding your emergency fund.  Most people go through life without an emergency fund and pray that no unexpected expenses occur.  My wife an I struggle with this one.  We are trying to pay off our student loan debt and often our emergency fund suffers.  However, an emergency fund is very important.  If you don’t have one, every time an unexpected expense arises, you will go further in debt.

6.  Write down all of your monthly expenses. Most people do not know exactly what they are spending money on each month or how much unaccounted for income they have every month.  The first step to creating a budget is to understand where you are spending you money today.  Just last week my wife and I went through our budget and decided to drop a lot of monthly bills associated with unnecessary services.

7.  Write down all of your debts.  As you are writing down you monthly expenses in step 5 above, I am sure that you came across several montly payment to various loans.  Write down on paper the amount you owe on each credit card debt, student loan debt, home mortgage loan, etc.  At this stage just focus on the principle amount you owe on each debt.

8.  Develop a plan to pay off your debts.  For my wife and I, we decided to pay off credit card debt and then student loan debt.  I love following Dave Ramsey’s advice on paying off the debt with the lowest principle balance and then using the money saved on that montly payment on your next lowest debt.  I love seeing these small wins.

9. Open a high interest checking account.  Most people don’t put much thought into their checking account.  But, I think that this is a missed opportunity.  There are some high interest checking accounts that will pay you a much high interest rate.  To read more about high interest checking accounts read my Internet Checking Account Guide.

10.  Read the following personal finance blogs.  Ok, it is not imperative that you read these particular ones, but they are some of my favorites.  The main point here is to continue to learn about personal finance.  This can be done by reading personal finance blogs, listening to personal finance podcasts and reading personal finance books.  Here are 5 of my favorite personal finance blogs.

• Very Personal Finance – Ok this is a little self serving   Subscribe to the Very Personal Finance RSS feed so that you don’t miss any of my articles.
• The Simple Dollar
• Bargaineering
• Wisebread
• Generation X Finance

This blog is called Very Personal Finance for a reason.  The is no one way to manage your finances. I am not able to tell you how to invest your money to meet your goals.  Why?  Because only YOU know what you want out of life.

My life goals are not the same as your life goals.  Therefore, I cannot tell you how to achieve your goals.

However, Very Personal Finance will help you to,

• Understand your life goals; and
• Design a financial system to give you the money to achieve those goals.

Being smart with money is no one’s ultimate goal.  No, people need money to achieve their goals.

But, people too often do not think about what truly makes them happy.  If you don’t understand what makes you happy, you don’t know what to spend your money on.  This leads to wasting your money on bad purchases.

I hope that this blog allows us to explore these life goals, and, through financial education, achieve them.

By understanding your life goals, you will know what money you need to achieve them.  That is why personal finance is so personal.

My name is Fred Peters and I’m a part time Blogger that has been writing about personal finance for several years.  In addition to writing about personal finance, I am captivated with the new and ever changing medium of blogging.  In addition to Very Personal Finance I also write at MMO Explorer, Newest on the Net and Online Banks Blog.

The purpose of Very Personal Finance is to help people take control of their finances and devel0p a system that help you to meet your life’s goals.  My personal finance philosophy is based around three principles.  These three principles form the foundation of this blog.

• Personal Finance Is Personal
• Only Sweat the BIG Stuff
• Develop a Personal Finance System That Works for YOU

Personal Finance Is Personal – No two people have the same goals in life.  So, why do personal finance gurus think that we would all share the same goals about money?  You have my word here that I will never presume to know your money goals.  But, hopefully by reading this blog you will better understand YOUR goals and learn how to achieve them.

So subscribe to Very Personal Finance and don’t ever miss an article.  Additionally, if you have any questions that you would like me to answer, please leave a comment or visit my Contact Page.